Idiom
reinvent the wheel
Meaning
To do work unnecessarily when it has already been done satisfactorily by others; to attempt to devise a solution to a problem when a solution already exists.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“Don't reinvent the wheel — use the existing template.”
“The manager told her team not to reinvent the wheel, since another department had already solved the same problem.”
“Rather than reinvent the wheel, the researchers built upon decades of established theory, saving years of redundant effort.”
Examples
simple
“Don't reinvent the wheel — use the existing template.”
contextual
“The manager told her team not to reinvent the wheel, since another department had already solved the same problem.”
complex
“Rather than reinvent the wheel, the researchers built upon decades of established theory, saving years of redundant effort.”
Key words
Related idioms
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